ART is domination. It's making people think that for that precise moment in time there is only one way, one voice. Yours. #MariaCallas

The Metropolitan, like all of the other opera houses, do offer me every year a contract. I would specifically ask for a very fine conductor... lots of rehearsals... #MariaCallas

An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house. #MariaCallas

Don't talk to me about rules, dear. Wherever I stay I make the goddam rules. #MariaCallas

When my enemies stop hissing, I shall know I'm slipping. #MariaCallas

Love is so much better when you're not married. #MariaCallas

On the whole there are two people in me. I would like to be Maria, but there is the Callas that I have to live up to. #MariaCallas

I was always too mature for my age - and not very happy. I had no young friends. I wish I could go back to those days. If I could only live it all again, how I would play and enjoy other girls. What a fool I was. #MariaCallas

All those little notes all the legatos all the everything that comes with music is what you call technique. An instrumentalist knows how to make his notes well with the proper intonation because intonation is also a necessity to technique. #MariaCallas

My Traviata has changed frequently my Norma more or less not much. #MariaCallas

If you really care to look into the music, it was always. We will always find a trill or an embellishment or a scale that justifies an expression of feeling of happiness or unhappiness of uneasiness anxiety. There is always a reason for such thing. #MariaCallas

It's a terrible thing to go through life thinking that you have a rock on your side when you haven't. #MariaCallas

You learn the role. You will roughly learn it. As I say, because these goes in stages, you cannot expect to learn it immediately. You have to give it time to be learned to be matured. #MariaCallas

On stage, I am in the dark. #MariaCallas

Opera is dead. It's outdated. And there's nothing you can do about it to change it. As singers if the composer did something bad, it's your responsibility to give it some coloratura, but that's all you can do. #MariaCallas

Generally speaking all they're interested in is getting their money, put in their costume, singing as best as they can and then go. But that's not my idea of making music. #MariaCallas

It takes a little more time to get into the role, but not very much more. In making a record you don't have the sense of projection over a distance as in an opera house. We have this microphone and this magnifies all details of a performance, all exaggerations. #MariaCallas

ART is domination. It's making people think that for that precise moment in time there is only one way, one voice. Yours. #MariaCallas

I would like to be Maria, but there is La Callas who demands that I carry myself with her dignity. #MariaCallas

I prepare myself for rehearsals like I would for marriage. #MariaCallas

Music should be essentially simple and upon simplicity and beauty of line it can become great. #MariaCallas

Women are not pals enough with men, so we must make ourselves indispensable. After all, we have the greatest weapon in our hands by just being women. #MariaCallas

I am embarrassed by compliments. I cannot have the same perception of myself as the public has. I cannot judge myself and I have a hard time realizing what I have done. But if you manage to persuade and to thrill the public then you have won. #MariaCallas

I belong to the givers. I want to give a little happiness even if I haven’t had much for myself. Music has enriched my life and, hopefully - through me, a little - the public’s. If anyone left an opera house feeling more happy and at peace, I achieved my purpose. #MariaCallas

Love is so much better when you are not married. #MariaCallas

Real friends are very special, but you have to be careful because sometimes you have a friend and you think they are made of rock, then suddenly you realise they're only made of sand. #MariaCallas

You should wear longer skirts slacks on a theater. The public that looks at you from down there sees a little more that you might want. #MariaCallas

This is what we learn from old people. What I learned from old Sarafine to always prepare a phrase to always dig deeper into the what the composer wanted and how he felt and how he used to struggle on one phrase to to show the horror or the love or the poetry. #MariaCallas

When my enemies stop hissing, I shall know I'm slipping. #MariaCallas

The public is a monster and that is why I am not eager to return to the stage. #MariaCallas

I am not an angel and do not pretend to be. That is not one of my roles. But I am not a devil, either. I am a woman and a serious artist, and I would like so to be judged. #MariaCallas

I would like to be Maria, but there is La Callas who demands that I carry myself with her dignity. #MariaCallas

What Tulio Serafin said that impressed me was: "When one wants to find a gesture, when you want to find how to act on stage, all you have to do is listen to the music. The composer has already seen to that." #MariaCallas

When music fails to agree to the ear, to soothe the ear and the heart and the senses, then it has missed the point. #MariaCallas

If you take the trouble to really listen with your soul and with your ears - and I say soul and ears because the mind must work, but not too much also - you will find every gesture there. And it is all true, you know. #MariaCallas

The critics said that I was tired at the end of Traviata but I took it as a compliment because I struggled to find this tired quality for her and it's dangerous. #MariaCallas

[On Trills] A trill is a necessity this is the equipment that goes with our instrument. In these operas that we preform abbellimenti must be dealt with physically and technically. One must have these to serve the music and be an honest musician. #MariaCallas

It's a terrible thing to go through life thinking that you have a rock on your side when you haven't. #MariaCallas

They have taught me, and life has taught me that the last act is the most important, because, no matter how much and how well you've sung on the very few one or two or three to four first acts. #MariaCallas

The full dress rehearsal, so there's no stopping unless it's something terribly, just like a performance with the critics, so you sing throughout with no interruption as it was a performance. #MariaCallas

I never lost my voice, but I lost strength in my diaphragm. I lost my bravery and fearlessness. As a result... my voice wobbled because I overstrained it. #MariaCallas

What I learned from Sarafine was that you must serve music, because music is so enormous and can envelop you into such a state of perpetual anxiety and torture, but it is our first and main duty. #MariaCallas

In order to learn to really become a musician after a singer, you have to put your instrument to the service of music. #MariaCallas

I prepare myself for rehearsals like I would for marriage. #MariaCallas

Music should be essentially simple and upon simplicity and beauty of line it can become great. #MariaCallas

We serve this unique art – the music most of all. It takes a lot of worry and a lot of anguish. It was left to us as a heritage and we must carry it on against all odds – even at our own health’s cost. #MariaCallas

Love is so much better when you're not married. #MariaCallas

I don't think much of my talent. Uh, I didn't even think I had a voice... I always used to sing for pleasure. I never even dreamed of having to have a career as a singer. #MariaCallas

When music fails to agree to the ear, to soothe the ear and the heart and the senses, then it has missed the point. #MariaCallas

Trills are necessary and they have to be well performed. Take Trovatore; Verdi and Donizetti used a lot of trills. They used them to express feelings so a trill is necessary as a technical skill for an interpreter. #MariaCallas